


Lost and Found

by dogmatix



Category: Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Illustrated, and also murder, but fluffy murder, fluff all over, non-canon ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-17
Updated: 2013-09-17
Packaged: 2017-12-26 20:25:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/969933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogmatix/pseuds/dogmatix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Done for this springkink prompt several years ago.  Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, Demi-Fiend/Futomimi: Real world, Naoki/Hitoshura looking for the original Futomimi - "Everyone has kindness in their hearts."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost and Found

It was all too much to take in.  Like a dream, people – humans – flowed around him, some staring, some averting their gaze.  It took a while to register the small white flakes as snow, falling from an overcast sky.  
  
Naoki looked up and realized that, if not for the clouds, he’d be seeing a vast nothingness of blue.  Vertigo took him, sending him stumbling back to a wall.  
  
Pressed back against the cold cement, he slowed and deepened his breathing, calming his racing heart.  They’d.  They’d _fixed_ it.  He wasn’t sure exactly how, the last bit was fuzzy in his memory, though he remembered Dante being involved somehow.   
  
He looked down at his hands. Black lines still traced over fingers and palms, thrumming with power that flowed out and back from the nape of his neck.  And he was still wearing only pants.  No wonder people had been staring.  
  
Looking out from the mouth of the alley, the world around him started to make sense.  People hunched over as they bulled their way through the crowd, wrapped in worn, bulky clothes, other people – mostly girls, or looking like girls – wearing just enough not to freeze to death, lounging against anything handy at the side of the road.  The streetlights were starting to come on.  
  
It was almost night.  Somewhere beyond the clouds, the sun was setting.  Wherever he was, it was a bad neighbourhood, the kind you didn’t venture into on your own or after dark.  Not that that really mattered to Naoki now – he might not have his demons with him, but he could still level half a house without much effort.  He should probably try to attract less attention though. Frowning, he looked out at the workers coming off shift or going on, the hawkers, the whores, and the occasional tweaked out druggie.  
  
“Gimme yer money,” rasped a voice that was obviously trying to be intimidating.  Something that felt vaguely like a knife-edge pressed against his side.  
  
It was only after he’d killed the would-be mugger and looted the corpse (a few yen and a serviceable jacket and scarf) that he paused.  The jacket hiding the greater part of his ‘tats’ was good for blending in, but the scent was unfamiliar; not his nor any of his demons’, not even Dante’s steel and gunpowder or the dry earth scent of a manikin.   
  
It was human.  Looking down at the dead man, he realized with a cold shock just how much his time in the Vortex World had changed him.  The two parts of him – not human and demon so much as teenaged boy and casual killer – were suddenly thrown into sharp difference, leaving him shaken and sick.  
  
He needed.  He needed his people.  Blindly he turned and started to run.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
He tugged on his long ponytail in what was fast becoming a habit as he stood in front of the subway entrance, getting snowed on and debating with himself.  It was late – he’d stayed on campus longer than intended getting the last few tests graded – and while it wasn’t too much of a walk back to his little apartment, the train would be faster.  But he’d been having a bit of trouble with trains lately.  
  
In fact, he’d been having a bit of trouble with a lot of things lately.  He was a professor at the local university where he taught comparative religion, he lived in a small apartment only a half hour walk away from campus, and… that was really about it.  He vaguely remembered a family and a misspent youth, but couldn’t quite get it to come clear.  He felt like an intruder in his own life, or maybe that he'd been dumped into the middle of the life he'd thought he wanted. Which made no sense at all.  
  
He could vaguely remember what he’d been doing last week, but it felt like he’d been sleepwalking before he woke up yesterday morning.  Or maybe this was the dream, and he’d wake up to some strange world where-  what?  Where he was someone else? Some _thing_ else?  
  
Something was off, was wrong, but he couldn’t for the life of him place it.  
  
“Futomimi!”  
  
With a shock down his spine he recognized his name though he’d never heard it before.  
  
“Futomimi!” came the call again, and even as he turned someone plowed into him, arms hugging tight around his ribs with crushing strength.  
  
“I found you!” The boy mumbled into his sweater, not letting go.  
  
He almost said “do I know you?” but before the first word left his lips he knew the answer was most emphatically Yes.  He found himself returning the hug. “Who are you?” he asked instead.  
  
The boy drew back slightly, black tattoos running down his cheeks strange but familiar all the same. “You don’t remember?” he asked, face falling.  
  
Somehow this felt real and _right_ , and even though he didn’t know why, he had no intention of letting it slip away.  ”No. But I know that I have forgotten.”  
  
The kid’s face scrunched up. “How does that work?”  
  
“I’m not entirely sure,” Futomimi said, faintly amused.  “But come on, I’ll buy you a coffee and you can tell me why I keep trying to buy a ticket to Asakusa.”  
  
FIN  
  



End file.
